You Knew
by Zoser
Summary: Missing scenes from Threads. Sam and Jack argument and resolution. Some vulgar language.
1. Chapter 1

**You Knew**

After leaving O'Neill's house and checking on her father at the SGC, Sam found herself caught in a whirlpool of emotions, her father lay dying and her friends, that she has become most reliant upon, were not there. Janet had died, Teal'c was off in Jaffa land, Daniel, if he existed at all, was somewhere in the ether and Jack had a woman in his life and it wasn't her.

* * *

Jacob fell into a deep sleep after talking with Sam. Following his wishes she went to see about notifying the Tok'ra of his condition. On her way back from the control room in the hallway she ran into Gen. O'Neill, just a few short hours since attempting to talk to him on his deck. 

Her usual tight control was slipping as all of the tensions of the day turn to anger and came spewing out at him for his abandonment of her in her time of need. In her mind she had already cast Pete aside. That ham-fisted way he tried to bind her to him with the house was the last straw. And her father's words allowing her to pursue a life with O'Neill had finally freed her. But that woman at O'Neill's house was the ultimate betrayal; the proof that he would not be faithful, would not sacrifice all for her, that he did not truly love her.

"How's your dad doing?" The question was a sincere voicing of concern for both Sam and her dad but it was the wrong thing to say. In fact, nothing Jack could have said was the right thing; she was livid.

"How could you?" Her eyes were ablaze with anger. She had initially been embarrassed and hurt at his house facing Kerry Johnson. But her pain morphed into feelings of total abandonment and finally into anger and it was impossible to contain.

"What?"

"That woman" her voice was sharp and raised.

"Not in the hall way; come into my office, NOW."

He closed the office door behind them and stood behind his desk.

Sam found it difficult to even look at him. Her face usually beautiful to him was a mask of intense hatred. He felt himself becoming defensive.

"Look, I know you're upset but this is not the time or place to discuss my private life." Unfortunately her raging anger seeped into him and intensified as he spoke. The turmoil of the day had affected him as well. "And who the hell do you think you are, Colonel, dictating to me whom I may or may not see. You are the one engaged to be married; you are the one who turned you're back; you are the one who needed more. I should become a monk while you sleep around with that…that looser. You're the one who wanted to lock everything away, to ignore our feelings, so you got what you wanted and now you're not satisfied. Well tough."

"You son of a bitch, you knew how I felt."

Waiting outside the general's office with the response from the Tok'ra, Sgt. Walter Harriman was hoping for an invasion by aliens just to stop the extremely loud arguing that could be heard clearly in the hallway and the briefing room. He didn't have the nerve to knock on the door.

"Coulda fooled me – oh yeah, you did."

"Well I'm glad I know now how you really are. No point wasting one more minute of my life waiting for you."

"Oh sweet, that's how you wait, good to know you have a hobby to keep you busy."

She wanted to slap him. "I wanted someone in my life and you backed away like a scared rabbit. Sure flirting on base was safe for you but giving of yourself... no, too much effort. I needed to know; I needed to be sure."

"You knew. How can you say you didn't know?"  
He was just about shouting now.  
"When they did the Za'tarc testing it was you, not me, that knew what was wrong. It was you that told me to tell them how I felt. It was you that…"

"I didn't know what you'd say. I only knew that you were hiding your feelings." Her voice took a oh so reasonable tone, her chin up but slight quiver of anger around her tightly pursed lips.

"Bullshit. You knew and you told me, no, you made me tell them everything." His voice was lower now but just as angry.

"You'd rather they destroy your brain trying to cure you of something you didn't have?

"Sometimes I think I would have rather."

"And for Christ's sake that was four years ago."

"What about the ice planet?"

"What about it?"

"Don't you remember."

She had no reply just an icy glare.

"That's the problem I do remember. I remember everything about it. They stripped us of everything, our uniforms, our memories, our lives, but I remembered one thing. One thing, one damned thing, I remembered that I loved you. You knew that. You knew that was the one constant in our lives and you threw it away. And you still can't tell me why you could do that without say one word to me."

"I told you I was going out with him."

"Oh yeah, I remember… in the elevator and I asked you and you said it was 'nothing serious'."

"You said you were happy for me."

"What was I suppose to do – press the stop button and fuck you in the elevator?"

Her cheeks flamed at his vulgarity.  
"You could have said something."

"We were on base, in uniform, as a superior officer it would have been sexual harassment… unwarranted advances."

"I told you he asked me to marry him."

"Yeah, I remember that to, the day you shoved the ring in my face what was I suppose to do then."

"I don't know. It's not all my fault."

"So you agree to marry him, HIM and you're angry at me for going out."

"You said you'd always be there for me."

"I'm not a god damned door mat. Believe it or not I actually have feeling too. And when the hell did I ever say that." He was shouting again and immediately regretted it. He sat down and with his elbows on his desk put his head in his hands.

She took a deep breath and tried to remember. They so rarely had personal conversations that it was hard to put her finger when this could have possibly come up. Then she colored remembering.

"On the Prometheus." She spoke softly.

"What? Two years ago with Conrad and Simmons?"

"No, it was when it was lost"

"I was there?"

"I saw you."

"You were hallucinating, Carter, I wasn't there."

"It was you; you came to help me. It seemed so real."

"Okay, so I saved you from being lost forever in space and in return you throw away seven years."

"Seven years of what?"

He just stared at her, his lips compressed in a tight white line. "I thought you knew."

Tear welled in her eyes. "I wanted so badly to have a normal life" her voice shaking with emotion "I wanted some one to come home to, some one to care." But the anger just as quickly as it sprung up turned again to pain. Sam tightened the reins around her feelings as she had for years.  
"I'm sorry. It is all a horrible mistake. It snowballed out of control, just like I was afraid my feeling for you would have. If I was only sure of you, if the damned war was over, if we were free from restrictions, people prying into our private lives, if only I could have been sure."

"That's a lot of 'ifs'."

A tear or two broke free and ran down her face. It hurt him.  
(He wanted to enfold her in his arms. Yearned to put his cheek against the top of her head; play with the hair behind her ear; caress her cheek.)  
"I'm not seeing her any more. She told me there was someone else."

"She left you for someone else?" It was incredulous to Sam.

"No. She said that I was in love with someone else."

"Are you?"

(If she were in his arms he would tip up her face to him and kiss away the unshed tears sparkling in her eyes.)  
And speaking so softly she barely heard him, he said "I thought you knew."


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: This was supposed to be a one shot but…

Chapter 2

He was still shaking a bit after Sam had left with Walter to consult with the Tok'ra. And although he hated to admit it he was still a little pissed. Bringing this up on base was so…then again hadn't Kerry done the same thing a few hours before, he didn't yell at her, he didn't tell her that this was not the time or place. What the hell was going wrong with his life, entangling the personal and the professional, especially in these times? God almighty, these of all times he needed to keep his wits about him. Not ten days ago he was shooting his way to the Stargate, waiting for Hammond to nuke the base to stop the invasion of the replicators. Carter had been on Dakara with her dad trying to prevent the extinction of all life in our galaxy by some long forgotten Ancient super weapon. Jack formed an alliance with that consummated bastard Ba'al, lost Daniel to who knows what and waited for annihilation. The only good thing to happen was the replicators crumbled to their basic bits. And now they were about to loose their final tie to the Tok'ra, Daniel was still MIA, the Jaffa had that god awful weapon and Anubis might have had a slight set back but he was still in the mix. And what was the one thing that left him shaking - an argument with Carter. Adrenaline overload perhaps, too much caffeine or was it what mattered most, at the most primal level, affected him the most. Not the life or death of billions but the pain of betray and lost love – what a pathetic old sap!

He needed to get down to the infirmary. Jacob Carter was a good friend and his passing would affect Jack personally as well as General O'Neill loosing a trusted liaison to a once formidable Ally. And too,Jack needed make peace between Sam and him for their personal sanity as well as General O'Neill needed to smooth the ruffled feathers of his top science officer for the efficient order of the base in these dire times.

He could do this and maybe when it was all over he would write that resignation letter to Hammond again. And if he failed,with all that was on his plate, it just might not be necessary.


	3. Chapter 3

A/N: First thing I want you to do is look in your vast store of music and select 'I Found a Reason' from Cat Power's The Cover Record and put in on a continuous loop.

* * *

And speaking so softly she barely heard him, he said "I thought you knew."

* * *

**Chapter 3**

It was part of the changes in their lives, her engagement and his promotion as commander of the entire base - he had to let go. He had to let go of so much but this...this hurt more although he had tried not to acknowledge this even to himself. And they hurt each other when they both did what they had to in order to survive the personal loneliness.

He had spent so much effort getting her out of his conscious thoughts that he thought that he had succeeded in getting her out of his heart. He was wrong. His heart - it had been lacerated and healed into a nexus of scar tissue that made it as tough as an old boot. At least that's what the silly man thought. His love for Sam sat in a cold shriveled part that let in no light of day; it survived but just barely, starved and ignored for the most part, occasionally tossed a crumb. It would survive until the day he died whether he knew it or not.

It was late at night he was listening to music, some Indie stuff that Cassie said he might like. He was in a bit of a melancholy mood. Oh that was rich; in fact, he was trying not to hate himself for screaming at a woman, who supposedly was a friend, while her father lay dying. They had forgiven one another for the shouting match but he still felt like such a bastard. So he was sitting in his living room in the dark with a little sipping whiskey. The song playing was elegant in its simplicity, the piano accompaniment was minimalist and the vocal hurt his heart. He though himself an indulgent fool when he put the song on a repeating loop.

"Oh I do believe  
In all the things you say"

One woman had left him today because of his love of another – she knew when the two of them were alone, there were three present. She sure didn't believe and shouldn't have had.

And the other woman, he saw her and her ailing father before he left the base. She had spent the last eight years trusted him with her life and he believed every word from her lips.

"What comes is better than what came before."

Could things change? Could things get better? It seemed that disaster and tragedy multiplied and he was buried under the avalanche. Was there actually a simple solution?

"And you'd better come, come, come, come, come to me.  
Better come, come, come, come, come to me.  
Better run, run, run, run, run to me.  
Better come"

But he was immobile. Even when he heard the car pull into the driveway. Even when the soft knock came, even when the door opened and she stepped into the room. She stopped as if absorbing the words and music and somehow understanding they spoke from the depths of both their hearts better than anything either of them could say.

"Oh I do believe  
In all the things you say"

Sam walked in the room to Jack. He stood slowly and walked to her.

"What comes is better than what came before"

She took his hands in hers.

He looked into her clear blue eyes; she wasn't upset so her father couldn't have died. He opened his arms and enfolded her.

"And you'd better run, run, run, run, run to me.  
Better run, run, run, run, run to me.  
Better come, come, come, come, come to me.  
Better run."

"I ran" she said with the music washing over them. She held on to him as if to a lifeline and they forgave each other wordlessly.

"Before…I ran away and I don't think I can survive that way. I know I don't want to.  
Dad said I could have everything I want." She spoke softly and slowly but not at all hesitant.  
"I want you; I want this. We can make this work."

Hope, once forbidden to inhabit his soul, kept fear at bay and he believed Sam's words; he always believed her.

"Oh I do believe  
In all the things you say."

They sat and talked for a good part of the night, assured by the dawn that what was to come would be better than what came before.

The End


End file.
